south africa's public service: learning from success

CDE ROUND TABLE

An occasional publication by the Centre for Development and Enterprise reflecting discussions held on key national issues

November 2009Number 13

SOUTH AFRICA’S PUBLIC SERVICELearning from success

The public service plays a key role in creating an environment in which citizens can flourish and benefit from their ingenuity and

industry. The essential services for which the state is responsible are prerequisites for the economic growth that alone can bring about last-ing prosperity, and enable future improvements in state services.

in order to set up this virtuous circle, a balance needs to be struck between provid-

ing public servants with secure and rewarding careers and making them accountable

to citizens. by contrast, poor public service contributes to a vicious circle of frustrated

citizens and poorly motivated and inefficient public servants.

Democratic South Africa has a long way to go to establish the virtuous circle of

higher levels of economic growth and better public services. There are disturbing signs

that poor service is well-established in many parts of the state. While there are some

striking success stories in specific areas, the general picture is deeply disappointing,

and of considerable concern to the vast majority of South Africans.

At the end of March 2008 the public service employed 1 204 525 people (including

members of the South African National Defence Force). Of these, 63 per cent were

employed in the social services sector (health, social development, education, and

home affairs), followed by 20 per cent in the criminal justice sector.1

The size and variety of employment in the public service points to the challenges of

organisational and human resource management confronting the government. public

sector employment is highly unionised – public sector affiliates account for about 36

per cent of cOSATu’s membership – and industrial relations in the public sector have

been a contentious and highly politicised issue within the ruling ANc Alliance since at

least 1996. The public sector strike of 2007 was one of the most costly in recent years.

however, human resource problems are not confined to pay and occupational

structures. Transformation and the adopted approach to affirmative action is a recur-

rent theme throughout all discussions of capacity and skills shortages, while political

CDE RounD TablE numbER 13

2

Participants

David Beretti, executive director: corporate

services, City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality

Dr Ivor Chipkin, chief research specialist,

Human Sciences Research Council

Melanie Da Costa, director: strategy and health

policy, Netcare

Dr Simon Dagut, senior manager: research

and projects, CDE

Amira EI Ibiary, project officer,

Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung

Dr Brian Figaji, director, CDE

Paul Graham, executive director, Institute for

Democracy in South Africa

Prof Douglas Irvine, director, policy programmes

and research, SBP

Capt Colin Jordaan, CEO, South African Civil

Aviation Authority

HE Han-soo Kim, Ambassador, Republic of Korea

Kallie Kriel, CEO, Afriforum

Etienne Le Roux, chief economist, Rand Merchant

Bank

Megan MacGarry, researcher, CDE

Dr Neva Makgetla, lead economist: research and

information, Development Bank of Southern Africa

Velly Makasana Manzini, Member of the Provincial

Legislature, Mpumalanga

Jean-Francois Mercier, chief economist, Citigroup

Sibongile Mkhabela, chief executive officer, Nelson

Mandela Children's Fund

Prof Job Tebogo Mokgoro, managing director,

ECI Africa

Mavuso Msimang, director-general, Department

of Home Affairs

Indran Naidoo, deputy director-general: monitoring

and evaluation, Public Service Commission

HE Toshiro Ozawa, Ambassador, Japan

HE Geoff Randal, High Commissioner, New Zealand

Dr Gary Reid, lead public sector management

specialist, World Bank

Dawie Roodt, chief economist, Efficient Group

Prof Robert Schrire, professor and head, department

of political studies, University of Cape Town

Francie Shonhiwa, social transformation manager,

Pretoria Portland Cement

Ryan Short, consultant, Genesis Analytics

Ernest Sigasa, special advisor: office of the

executive mayor, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality

Jabulani Sikhakhane, editor-in-chief, Destiny

Andile Sokomani, researcher, Institute for Security

Studies

Prof Roger Southall, professor, department of

sociology, University of the Witwatersrand

Prof David Spurrett, consultant, CDE

Hans van der Merwe, executive director, AgriSA

Hennie van Vuuren, head: corruption and

governance programme, Institute for Security Studies

Hubertus von Welck, regional director,

Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung

Prof Jennifer Widner, professor of politics and

international affairs, Princeton University

Martin Wust, head: public sector programme,

FeverTree Consulting

SouTh afRiCa’S publiC SERviCE

3

ANC african national Congress

ATNS air traffic and navigation services

BEE black economic empowerment

CAA Civil aviation authority

CBD central business district

DBSA Development bank of Southern africa

DG Director General

FAA federal aviation authority (united States of

america)

IATA international air Transport association

ICAO international Civil aviation organisation

ICU intensive care unit

ISO international organisation for Standardisation

M&E monitoring and evaluation

MTSF The Sa government’s medium Term Strategic

framework

NHS national health Service (united Kingdom)

PSC public Service Commission

PFMA public finance management act

PPP public-private partnership

Abbreviations and acronyms

patronage is increasingly recognised as a dead weight

that drags down performance across many parts of

the public service.

There is too much inefficiency, too much corrup-

tion, and too little basic administrative competence.

This is indicated by the shockingly low rate of clean

audits for municipalities (less than half are finan-

cially unqualified and 20 per cent of national and

provincial departments receive adverse or qualified

audits). This shows that basic failures of administra-

tion and governance, as well as improper or wasteful

expenditure, infect much of the public service.

Another source of evidence is the public Service

commission, which reports that more than half of

national public service departments perform more

poorly than they should. Recent community protests

about service delivery are another worrying indicator

of state failure and public frustration.

Against this background, the importance of

improving the public service is clear. if we are to real-

ise South Africa’s potential for economic growth, a

top priority is to have better (and constantly improv-

ing) public services for all citizens.

in September 2009 cDe brought together a col-

lection of local and international experts to engage in

frank and open discussion on how the public service

can work in smarter, faster and more accountable ways

to meet the country’s growth and development needs.

We did not underestimate the challenges we have

sketched above, and they were always present in the

discussions and presentations. but there are also suc-

cess stories and positive models that point the way to

improvement.

We decided to emphasise examples of successful

initiatives in public services in order to focus on solu-

tions and not recriminations. participants heard and

discussed stories and lessons from other countries,

and from particular departments and other state

entities in South Africa. Some key insights emerged

– including the need for sound political leadership,

good management practices, and openness to effec-

tive partnerships with private enterprise – which are

spelled out at the end of the document.

They will not be easy to implement, especially

across such a populous and diverse empire as the

public service, and hard choices and tradeoffs will

need to be made. however, we can start well by learn-

ing from success.


4

Robert Schrire

Professor of political studies,

University of Cape Town

i want to talk about how political dynamics influence

the performance of the public service. The civil serv-

ice does not operate in a vacuum. Three aspects of the

political environment are vital for understanding the

public service, namely major historical inequalities

between various racial and ethnic groups; single-party

dominance; and a racialised public discourse, which

impedes understanding and action.

There are four possible explanations of public

sector failures, which are often combined:

• incompetent people have been appointed to vari-

ous positions;

• public service institutions have poor manage-

ment systems;

• the state is overambitious in the sense that its

objectives exceed its capacities; and

• the political context is not conducive to an effi-

cient system.

The ‘by-product’ theory of delivery holds that

individuals and organisations do not deliver as a

matter of altruism or idealism, but as a by-product of

the incentives at play in their particular environment.

We don’t expect monopolists to care as much about

quality products as companies that compete for mar-

ket share. The same principle operates in government

– a monopoly government will not be as motivated to

provide good services as a competitive one.

We have two pernicious forces at work. The first

is that the same party has been in power for 15 years.

The second is the expectation by both those in gov-

ernment and in opposition that that party will remain

in power for at least another 15 years. As a result,

there is a very weak relationship between perform-

ance and consequences in South African politics.

There is also no balancing mechanism. citizens

do not seem to show any outrage where it would

count most, namely at the ballot box. Many people

seem to be frustrated with the ANc, but still support

it. part of our racial discourse is that criticism of the

ANc is largely deflected: it's rejected because it sup-

posedly comes from racist whites in opposition, and

so on. We tend not to look seriously at the merits of

the objection, but at who the messenger is. instead,

we need to take action where policies are not working.

Given this, we need to focus on incentives if we

want this situation to change. We need to create a sys-

tem with incentives for good governance and efficient

delivery, rather than patronage or parasitism. We need

to work out how, given the reality of single-party domi-

nance, to create a sense of urgency without political or

social turmoil; we don’t want to see urgency conveyed

by violent protests only. And we need to examine

trade-offs, and whether the potential benefits of our

actions are really worth the real costs.

And the right notion of cost in this respect is the

opportunity cost: not just the rand value, but the

cost of giving up other things we might have gained

from spending our resources differently. The great-

est crime in this context is to waste human resources.

in this respect we need to move beyond transforma-

tion, and recognise that every loss of growth through

politically correct measures actually hurts the poor-

est. Those who get a good start, including a decent

education, always thrive, and rise to the top. We need

to realise that, if measures such as affirmative action

impact negatively on economic growth, they actually

hurt the poor.

What’s wrong with the public service, and why?

Roger Southall

Professor of sociology, University

of the Witwatersrand

According to Max Weber, modern bureaucracies

have six major characteristics:

• a rational, defined allocation of jobs;

• a clear division of labour;

• a chain of command and accountability;

• a consistent system of abstract rules and defined

limits of authority;


5

• the impersonal application of rules and appoint-

ment of officials on the basis of competence,

training and knowledge (meritocracy); and

• the separation of private and official income.

This projects one ideal image of a public service: a

rule-based system that operates fairly and rationally

to perform certain functions, or deliver certain serv-

ices. The current public discourse in South Africa often

projects a different and more pessimistic image of the

public service, one in which, among other things:

• the ruling party is superior to the state and

the constitution, and loyalty trumps public

accountability;

• affirmative action devalues technical competence

and merit;

• working for the state is viewed as a route to

wealth;

• rules are not impartially applied; and

During July 2009, protests against poor service delivery

erupted once again in townships across South africa.

according to municipal iQ, a research unit which moni-

tors municipal services, these protests are mounting;

dissatisfied South africans embarked on 24 major pro-

tests between January and July this year, compared to

a total of 27 in 2008.2

Some of the biggest and most violent protests

occurred in Thokoza township on the East Rand; the

overcrowded Diepsloot informal settlement north of

Johannesburg; and Sakhile township near Standerton

in mpumalanga.

These protests have added to pressures on president

Jacob Zuma’s cabinet to deliver on government prom-

ises to improve services that help to alleviate poverty

at the municipal level.

During the September 2009 protests in Sakhile,

protesters refused to end their marches against corrup-

tion, fraud and maladministration by local government

officials unless national government addressed their

concerns.3 Similarly, residents from several informal

settlements on the East Rand gave the Ekurhuleni

mayor seven days to respond to their demands after

marching to the municipality’s office in october.4

The citizens of a democracy with regular elections

and many official channels for expressing dissatis-

faction should not feel driven to engage in protests,

especially violent ones, over basic delivery of public

services. The protests indicate a failure of delivery,

and also of communication between the government

and public. The failures of delivery are extensively

documented.

a recent public Service Commission review of 16

government departments found, among other things,

that only 25 per cent of departments have public par-

ticipation policies and guidelines, and that few of the

staff responsible for public participation have been

appropriately trained.

as the pSC noted in a major report on public partici-

pation last year: ‘Without proper public participation

mechanisms, citizens are likely to find other ways to

mobilise and express themselves.’5

CDE 2009

Service delivery protests

• there is favouritism and corruption.

Neither of these images is accurate; we’re some-

where in between, and i want to draw attention to four

general features of our situation which we need to take

into account when trying to plan any interventions.

The first is the nature of the post-colonial state.

pre-democratic South Africa wasn't a colony, but

had some colonial features. in post-colonial states

marked by significant levels of poverty, the public

service often becomes a vehicle of class formation

and wealth accumulation. South Africa needed to

embark on a deliberate programme of correcting

racial wealth imbalances.

perhaps this was not done in the best possible

way, but then one has to ask: how else should it have

been done? And if one adopts this approach, how

does one avoid people thinking of public service

employment primarily as a means of transferring


6

how do we avoid people thinking of

public service employment

primarily as a wealth transfer?

wealth rather than being responsible for providing a

service to members of the public?

Second, our transition to democracy involved

an implicit racial bargain. put simplistically, it was

understood that black control over the state would

be balanced by continued white domination of the

economy. Of course, since then numerous meas-

ures – notably bee – have been introduced in order

to change unequal participation in the economy.

but race remains important for our understanding of

South Africa and the workings of the public service.

The third relevant factor is the notion of breaking

a social contract. The political philosopher Thomas

hobbes created a model in terms of which individu-

als exchange some freedoms in return for the state

providing them with safety and security. but we all

know that the South African state is failing to meet

the basic needs, including the physical safety, of

many of its citizens. When state services fail they are

often replaced with private services, but these are

invariably very expensive, and only available to a

privileged minority. So major parts of our society are

effectively left without functional government.

The last factor we need to take into account is the

declining coherence in our society. This has been

identified by the presidential Review commission

which has expressed its concern about visible ine-

qualities, disappointed expectations, the pressures of

a consumer society, high unemployment, and much

more. We seem to lack a sense of common citizen-

ship, of shared values across class and racial divides.

Among other things, this means that public servants

don't often have a strong sense of the public inter-

est; instead, they believe they are free to pursue their

private interests, and corruption becomes part of the

job description.

At the local government level, particularly in very

poor communities in which many people are job-

less, being elected to the local council or getting a

job in a local administration is an immediate route

to betterment.

There are no easy responses to any of these issues,

but there are things we need to try to figure out. can

we move towards deracialising the debate when

opportunities are still so racially skewed? can we

tackle that racial bargain? can we improve account-

ability to ensure a renewal of the social contract? can

business embrace the training and upward mobility

of black people, and the public service the continued

upward mobility of whites? how do we foster a sense

of commonality across racial and class divides?

And, to echo a point made by Robert Schrire, can

we match capacity to ambition? This has become a

key question, because the ANc has embraced the

notion of a developmental state, which implies the

state playing a more active role in regulating the

economy. Yet the public service is already unable to

perform many of its current functions, and deliver

many of the services it is meant to deliver today.

Paul Graham

Executive director, IDASA

i’m going to talk about three things: public service,

public confusion, and performance.

As regards the public service, is it really clear what

the South African police Service, the Department of

education, and the Department of home Affairs have

to do with one another? They all provide public serv-

ices; however, they differ very significantly from one

another, and in trying to improve them we should be

careful not to treat them in the same way.

if we want to build a public service that will reflect

and serve our society as a whole, we need to rethink

the issues of affirmative action and diversity. clearly,

it should recruit people from all sectors of our society.

As regards public confusion, the public service is

not well understood by the public it is meant to serve.

Our Afrobarometer, based on research conducted in

18 African countries including South Africa, shows

that many people are confused about whether spe-

cific government functions are the responsibility of

central government, local government, or traditional

leaders. if citizens are confused about which level of


7

government is or should be responsible for some-

thing, it is hardly surprising that it is difficult for them

to exercise any oversight over public bodies.

This also explains why public discontent, includ-

ing service delivery riots, is sometimes aimed at

inappropriate state representatives or institutions.

Many protests are aimed at elected councillors who

are not involved in actual service delivery – or at local

governments over services, such as housing, that are

actually national competencies.

it is difficult to discern fundamental improve-

ments in service delivery, but the fact that

ministers are now visiting communities to talk to

people involved in protests against poor service

delivery is a welcome change. previously, we saw too

much denial and delegitimation of citizen protests.

Third, it is significant that we are able to

monitor performance in South Africa because of

reasonably good transparency about some aspects of

government. consider the budget. iDASA has been

concerned for years about the extent of underspend-

ing and resultant fiscal dumping (hasty end-of-year

spending in order to avoid accusations of under-

spend). The Treasury provides this data every quarter.

however, in the first quarter of this year most provin-

cial departments had indeed spent about a quarter

of their annual budget. This suggests that there has

been a real improvement.

Other important indicators are provided by the

Auditor-General, which audits the accounts of all

state and parastatal entities. it performed 463 audits

in the last reporting period, and only 23 per cent of

these were clean. Among other things it means that

there are problems, some small and some major, in

the ways in which many departments and munici-

palities are dealing with the public and Municipal

Finance Management Regulations, which is – or

should be – a major source of concern.

Only about one per cent of municipalities have

clean audits. Of course, the problems range from

minor technical failures to truly egregious ones. but

one per cent is still a very small number. Moreover,

some 70 per cent of the adverse opinions occur in

only four provinces, namely the eastern cape, lim-

popo, North West, and Northern cape. This shows

that, if we have the will to act on them, these reports

provide us with the means to address the problems in

the public service in a far more focused and therefore

far more effective way.

Discussion

participants pointed out that the pre-1994 public

service was also defective in various ways. it was

never in the business of providing efficient services

to all citizens. Numerous parts of the state played

an active role in enforcing the apartheid order, and

parts of it were riddled with corruption. South Africa

now faces the challenge of building something it has

never had before: a public service that serves the

entire population.

Mavuso Msimang, director-general of home

Affairs, recalled that corruption in the Department

of home Affairs started during the old social order

when black people living in the ‘homelands’ started

to bribe officials to help them gain access to the

major urban areas. Today, the system was being

subverted by a new group of people who wanted to

acquire South African citizenship.

Other points made include:

• While affirmative action has the laudable goals

of making the public service more representa-

tive, and building a black middle class, it extracts

a considerable price in the form of reduced effi-

ciency because of the loss of large numbers of

skilled and experienced personnel. Appointing

people solely on the basis of their skin colour, or

whom they know, promotes a cynical attitude.

Moving away from the ‘deployment’ strategy and

better placement and training programmes could

help to reduce these costs.

• The public service is not directly answerable to

the public, and any improvement will require

high-level political intervention. Only high-rank-

ing politicians have the authority to introduce

if citizens are confused about which level of

government is responsible for something,

it’s difficult for them to exercise oversight


8

reform programmes, and only the presidency is

able to resolve territorial conflicts between minis-

tries or departments. Therefore, pressures on the

government to step up public service reform need

to be increased. Service delivery protests are one

source of pressure, but violent protests are clearly

not desirable.

• improving or reforming a public service can be

very expensive. While some money could be

saved by cutting staff, the delivery and infrastruc-

ture shortfalls require additional investment.

These funds have to come from somewhere.

ultimately, South Africa will only be able to

restructure its civil service if it achieves higher

levels of economic growth, and the civil service

at all levels should work to enable this as well.

Should this be achieved, the public service will

effectively pay for itself. Without higher levels of

economic growth, the situation is likely to worsen.

• efficient service delivery depends on motivated

civil servants. This is threatened when loyalties

are primarily political. Appointments based on

political patronage can actively harm perform-

ance, and the fact that jobs are seen as political

tends to shield bad performers from being held

to account. This is occurring in many parts of the

South African public service, and needs to be

dealt with. The ANc’s deployment strategy sys-

tematically places loyalty ahead of merit and even

of competence, and is therefore a serious obstacle

to an efficient public service.

• public confusion about the responsibilities of dif-

ferent levels of government is a challenge. South

Africans need to understand which parts of gov-

ernment are responsible for which functions, and

should have avenues for expressing their dissat-

isfaction which will lead to visible action, thus

reducing or obviating the need for destructive

violent protests. Of course, elections are the most

important ways in which communities and indi-

viduals can express their dissatisfaction with their

governments’ performance. The bizarre situation

has arisen where people vote for a particular polit-

ical party and almost immediately start to protest

about the performance of its representatives and

the officials appointed by them in their areas.

• There have to be serious consequences for proven

instances of corruption, including termination of

employment or removal from office. The current

culture of patronage is playing a significant role in

failures to identify and act against corruption, and

must be urgently addressed.

Gary Reid

Lead public sector management specialist,

World Bank

The political economy of implementing a reform is

inseparable from its technical aspects; therefore,

it’s important to tailor the technical design of your

reform to your specific political economy challenges.

i will make some general observations, and then say

a little about Albania, where i’ve done a lot of work.

South africa will only be able to

restructure its civil service if it achieves

higher levels of economic growth

Lessons from international experience

it’s useful to distinguish political economy chal-

lenges from results challenges. The main political

economy challenges are:

• understanding why a ‘sub-optimal equilibrium’

exists;

• figuring out how a ‘winning coalition’ for reform

can be created and nurtured; and

• figuring out how likely sources of resistance can

be addressed.

The main results challenges are:

• ensuring that reform efforts actually deliver the


9

intended or promised results; and

• ensuring that reform efforts adjust strategically to

changing conditions.

Starting with the political economy challenges, a

‘sub-optimal equilibrium’ is achieved when a system

is stuck in an unsatisfactory state. To understand why

a system get stuck in a state we don’t like, we need to

do at least three things.

The first is to figure out who benefits, and why.

Stakeholder analysis is often use to achieve this.

Suppose you're looking at the specific delivery of a

particular service. if it's education, the stakeholders

are headmasters, teachers, administrators, parents,

and students, among others. Then you need to con-

sider why they behave in the way they do, and what

benefits they receive for doing so.

Second, you need to figure out the rules of the

game, whether formal or informal, and how they per-

mit or reinforce the sub-optimal equilibrium. This is

tricky, but important – to change the system you’ll

need to change the rules, and informal rules may not

respond to formal changes. A regulation that teachers

should be at school may have no effect unless head-

masters are motivated to enforce it.

Third, you need to work out what strengths and

weaknesses make it difficult to break out of an exist-

ing sub-optimal equilibrium. issues here can include

capacity problems, such as skills shortages, but help-

ful individuals may also lack the authority or motive

to improve the situation. Assessing the capacity of

various agents to influence things is important.

My second and third political economy chal-

lenges – creating a ‘winning coalition’ for reform,

and likely sources of resistance – are less applicable

to South Africa because it is dominated by one party,

and the winning coalition is the ANc. So the question

is rather, what does the ANc want to do, and how can

one design a reform programme which is consistent

with its objectives?

A winning coalition needs to get a few things

right. One is to keep the scope of reform proportional

to the base of support. You can only achieve a lot if

you have a lot of support. Trying to change too much

at once is a recipe for failure. Rather get something

The public Service Commission has monitored and

evaluated the performance of the public service since

2000. it does so mainly by assessing the extent to

which national and provincial government depart-

ments comply with the nine values and principles of

public administration stipulated in the constitution,

namely professional ethics; efficiency, economy and

effectiveness; development orientation; impartiality

and fairness; public participation in policy-making;

accountability; transparency; good human resource

management and career development practices; and

representivity.

The programme proceeds in two-year research

cycles. The most recent report covers the 2007/8

research cycle and was published in 2008.6 not all

departments are assessed in each cycle. a total of 22

departments – five national and 17 provincial – were

studied in the 2007/8 cycle, bringing the number

of departments assessed since the inception of the

programme to 75. Each department is given a score

ranging from 0 to five for each value: the lower the

score, the worse the performance.

only one – the national Department of public Service

and administration – received an average score higher

than 4 (good to excellent performance on most or all

standards); eight received average scores between

3 and 4 (adequate performance on some standards);

11 received average scores between 2 and 3 (develop-

ment needed in most standards); and two received

average scores between 1 and 2 (development needed

in all standards). The overall average was 55 per cent;

however, it was the best achieved since the inception

of the project, progressing from 28 per cent in 2005/6

and 48 per cent in 2006/7.

CDE 2009

Public Service Commission documents state failings


10

Trying to change too much at

once is a recipe for failure

smaller right, and then try to duplicate successes.

Another is to track results. Also, the information you

gather should be used to build support, advertise

achievements, and adjust the course of the reform

programme – to figure out what's working, what isn’t,

and how to make strategic adjustments.

Similar points go for dealing with likely sources of

resistance. You need to identify the important stake-

holders, and sometimes divide and conquer. if you

expect a lot of opposition, one option is to reduce

the initial scope of reform so that it is perceived to

threaten only a small group of anti-reform interests.

Again, you need to track results, and use them to con-

tinuously address criticisms of the reform effort.

Turning to results challenges, there are three

things you need to do to ensure that reform pro-

grammes actually deliver their intended or promised

results. First, you need to know what you're trying to

achieve, in a way that you could measure, so that you

can generate systematic evidence on whether you're

making progress. This means identifying specific

shorter-term goals, such as getting the time it takes

to issue a passport down to a specific number of days,

over and above the popular broad ones such as ‘we're

going to improve the efficiency of the public service’

or ‘ we're going to reduce the corruption of the public

sector’. And you need to make these measurements.

Then you need to ensure accountability for

results. Obviously, if you don’t have any systematic

evidence, you can’t do it at all. but if you have, you

can work out whether you need to tweak the reforms,

reallocate resources, or – in extreme cases – deciding

that the leader you've got in a particular position is

not delivering, and can’t be helped or persuaded to

deliver, so you need to get rid of him or her.

Albania illustrates many of these points. We

started working with the Albanian government in the

late 1990s, and at the time they did not have a his-

tory of a Weber-style bureaucracy; instead, they had

ministries which were fiefdoms of the minister con-

cerned. each minister who came into power hired

everybody in the ministry, so all ministry staff served

at his pleasure. public employees had very little pro-

tection against rights abuses, and could be sacked for

any reason. low salaries further contributed to the

unattractiveness of public sector jobs.

The Albanian government then set out to achieve

the following objectives:

• create a depoliticised civil service, managed on

merit,

• ensure equitable and independent redress for

civil servants; and

• attract skilled people, partly by raising salaries.

They have made significant progress towards

achieving these goals, and how they did so illustrates

a number of my more general points.

it was possible to track depoliticisation by watch-

ing quarterly turnover rates and seeing if they spiked

following a change in political leadership. We tracked

those for both civil servants and for political appoint-

ees over time, and saw some positive progress. We

suffered major setback when a new party was elected

to power, and roughly a third of civil servants were

dismissed. however, many of them sought legal

redress, and were successful in the courts. This

was possible because the reform programme had

changed the rules of the game – mistreated employ-

ees had rights they had not previously enjoyed.

improved salaries also led to a significant increase

in the number of qualified applicants for advertised

positions. Again, we had systematic data which

showed us that change was having the desired effect.

lastly, it was very helpful that the technical leader

of the reform process (the person in charge of the

Department of public Administration) was capable and

committed, and that she had the support of the prime

minister, which enabled political obstacles - including

resistance from other ministers – to be overcome.

Discussion

participants said the situation surrounding single

party dominance in South Africa differed in one

important respect from that described by Reid. The

ANc is electorally very powerful but far from inter-

nally homogenous, and is also involved in a volatile


11

Relationships between political appointees

and civil servants present specific challenges

alliance with the South African communist party and

cOSATu, neither of which directly contest elections.

On issues such as public service reform, elected pol-

iticians might gain from improved service delivery,

but face opposition from trade unions with an inter-

est in the status quo. Therefore, civil service reformers

cannot rely on the dominance of the ANc, and need

to build winning coalitions in favour of each reform

they hope to achieve.

in response to questions, Reid made the following

additional points:

• Whatever the vision and aspirations of an organi-

sation, it takes work to get people to understand

their roles. Gaining clarity on job descriptions

and the allocation of responsibilities is helpful.

The relationships between political appointees

and civil servants also present specific challenges

which need to be properly handled. To make things

work takes consultation, and explicit guidelines on

the specific roles of different players. Sometimes

organisational design needs to change, so that the

different roles can relate in a coherent way.

• The scope of the Albanian reforms was delib-

erately narrow, focusing on two per cent of the

personnel. but the intended consequences were

large, because the people and positions tar-

geted were all managerial and professional, and

located throughout the public service. improving

managerial and professional capacity is the best

short-term investment in longer-term gains.

• performance evaluation also presents a number

of challenges. Systems should not be cumber-

some. Thorough annual evaluations are important,

but good management requires more frequent

(typically weekly) feedback to staff. independent

performance measures can be useful, and public

servants can be held accountable to them, but

because other factors often impact such indicators,

they must be treated with care. When evaluations

depend on judgements made by individuals, there

is a danger of systematically biased scores. This

initially happened in Albania, where to start with

almost everyone was rated as ‘excellent’. it takes

time and work to get honest appraisals.

Learning from African successes

Jennifer Widner

Professor of politics and international affairs,

Princeton University and director,

Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice

i run a programme at princeton on innovations for

successful societies. We look for cases of success-

ful reform, and try to share those experiences where

they might be useful. Reform is a difficult process.

We’ve heard a lot about how important it is to get

the politics right, but it’s still hard even when you do.

Reform needs a lot of managerial expertise, and a lot

of attention.

Tanzania is an important example. i think reform

is actually getting off the ground there. A little over

a decade ago Tanzania's leaders began to think very

hard about how they could improve the capacity of

central government, and ideally of local governments

as well.

They realised that their economic policies would

have to be far more market-oriented, and that the

civil service was not adapted to this. Moreover, the

government had to find a way of paying for an effec-

tive civil service. leaders also knew that many people

were dissatisfied with service delivery.

So what did they achieve, and how?


12

The main thing is that reformers

sometimes need presidential clout

to help resolve a problem

in the first phase of the reform programme,

which started in about 1992, they reduced the size

of the civil service by 25 per cent, partly by getting

rid of ghost workers. This reduced the wage bill, and

enabled them to increase salaries and wages. by 2007

the civil service had achieved 90 per cent of its pay

targets. in the second phase, the reformers began

to refine and streamline job definitions, develop

performance standards, and get performance man-

agement under way.

With the help of management consultants, they

also created several independent authorities that dra-

matically improved service delivery in some areas. For

example, the time taken to acquire a birth certificate

dropped from about three years to a few days. They

also reduced the time it takes to register a business

and get a licence by about 50 percent. how did they

achieve these results, and what problems remain?

First, the reforms had high-level backing, with

the reformers concentrated in the president's office.

This meant that those leading the reforms had regu-

lar high-level access; if problems emerged in trying

to get ministers on board, they could walk into the

president’s office. They had to tinker with the details

about how public service reform interacted with

ministers – this is difficult to get right, and the min-

isters were initially sceptical – but the main thing is

that reformers sometimes need presidential clout to

help resolve a problem.

Reformers also introduced weekly staff meetings

for key players. This was very important for keeping

things moving, ironing out problems, and keeping

everybody's eye on the ball. leaders of the reform

body were appointed for at least 10 years, which pro-

vided continuity.

They worked hard to manage the political impact

of downsizing, or right-sizing. This meant figuring

out how to remove people, including ghost work-

ers, and then mitigate both anxiety about, and the

actual social cost of the retrenchments and early

retirements. This illustrates Gary Reid’s point about

building coalitions, and anticipating likely sources

of resistance. So they embarked on a lot of dialogue

and advertising, to explain what they were doing and

why – how many employees were being moved to new

positions, how many were being retrained in addition

to their retrenchment packages, and so on. equally

importantly, they had to ensure that the people they

brought in did not become complacent in turn.

The staff cuts created a planning challenge of

their own in that they created a generation gap that

risked harming the capacity of the public service

about 10 years down the line. So in 2008 they had to

seek out people with vital skills and fast-track them

into management positions.

before they could embark on meaningful per-

formance management, they had to develop a system

to track public employees. We often find that govern-

ments don’t really know who their employees are,

and it took Tanzania years to figure this out.

They also created independent agencies to han-

dle some functions, especially routine services

which charged fees, and which had incentives to be

efficient. in all cases there were watchdogs, because

the agencies were in areas where there were strong

public or business constituencies. They were also

supervised by boards including members of the

public, and the executives were retained on perform-

ance-based contracts. These agencies spent portions

of their gains from efficiency on increasing salaries.

Streamlining procedures played a key role in

reducing corruption. if there are fewer points at

which a clerk needs to touch a piece of paper, the cor-

ruption rates are likely to go down, just because there

are fewer opportunities for it.

Finally, i want to comment on transparency,

which is an issue everywhere. You need to report on

how well you are doing, as well as justify what you are

doing. The Tanzanians put the performance of their

local governments up on the web. This can help to

get the community on board, and motivate ministers

as well. Nigeria is a good example of a place in Africa

where justifying policy is taken seriously. Nigerians

are emphatic about going to television debates, where

ministers face really robust discussion of their policies

and performance. And the hewlett Foundation has


13

launched a big open budget project in much of Africa,

putting a lot of information out in the public domain

so people can trace where payments meant for their

schools and other public facilities actually went.

Discussion

participants asked professor Widner what strat-

egies were available for dealing with a lack of

management capacity. She described a promising

Nigerian initiative in terms of which Nigerians work-

ing in international corporations outside the country

were accepting interns from the Nigerian public serv-

ice. This required negotiating with the companies

and with the donors supporting public service reform

programmes.

under another programme, companies investing

in the region were providing six-month internships

for public service middle managers. both initiatives

were aimed at exposing public servants to business

processes and cultures. however, they ran the risk

of people leaving the public service. Further points

included:

• public Service reform benefits from high level

political support.

• An inefficient public service can hamper eco-

nomic growth, thus harming all its citizens.

• Some public service functions can be more effi-

ciently delivered by specialised agencies.

• Although political frameworks and other high

level factors are important, much can be gained

from relatively simple management practices

such as regular staff meetings.

following promises by Jacob Zuma during last year’s

election campaign, a presidential hotline providing

members of the public with a more direct means of

communicating with the government was introduced

in September.7

Calls are fielded by public liaison officers based in the

union buildings. all enquiries and complaints are meant

to be followed up by public liaison officers based in

government departments and offices of provincial pre-

miers. provinces are meant to establish similar services,

down to the municipal level.8

The hotline was immediately flooded with com-

plaints about electricity, housing, water, corruption and

education. after several weeks, it was still very difficult

for callers to get connected.

This suggests that many South africans have com-

plaints about the public service, and that existing

channels for expressing their concerns are not working.

The value of the hotline is unclear. There is no short-

age of reporting about the shortcomings of the public

service; the problem is that little or nothing is done

about it. managers at the municipal, provincial and

even national levels have already learned that poor

performance, including poor audit results, have mini-

mal consequences.

The rules of the game need to change. if the prob-

lems reported by members of the public are verified

and acted upon, it could lead to significant improve-

ments in the quality of the public service. if not, we will

just have more monitoring without accountability, and

even more frustrated citizens.

CDE 2009

More than a publicity stunt?


14

South African success stories

Melanie Da Costa

Director, strategy and health policy, Netcare

i want to talk about solutions rather than theory,

and explain how we at Netcare have created suc-

cessful private-public partnerships in South Africa

but also in the united Kingdom and lesotho.

We are involved in a large number of public-

private partnerships or initiatives in the united King-

dom and South Africa. One useful way of ranking these

initiatives is in terms of their complexity and risk.

At the lowest level of risk you find rental arrange-

ments. in the case of health this might be a matter

of the public sector renting beds in private hospitals,

or vice versa. One example is a Netcare hospital in

bronkhorstspruit.

The public sector pays to use 15 beds in that facil-

ity. Netcare owns and maintains the facility, and

provides nursing and other services, but the doc-

tors caring for the public patients are public sector

doctors. private emergency services also sometimes

support the public system at major events. This is

also generally low risk – it’s just a matter of paying

for services.

Another opportunity for low-risk partnership

is training, such as training government nurses or

paramedics. We recognise the shortage of nursing

personnel, and see it as a problem for everyone. So

we are trying to find ways of freeing up capacity in

private training colleges in order to provide dedi-

cated training for the public sector.

Moving up the risk and complexity ranking, we

have facilities management. We have quite a few such

ppps in South Africa under which the public sector

outsources functions such as building, cleaning,

laundry, and even pharmaceutics supply. even more

complicated partnerships involve the management

of hospitals. We're starting to see examples of this in

South Africa, including a public facility at Matekwene

in Mpumalanga which is run by life healthcare. life

healthcare also manages several specialised Tb facil-

ities under contract to the government.

The most complicated and risky contracts involve

some level of integration in clinical delivery. These

include contracts relating to elective surgery waiting

lists. Although private hospitals are a fraction of the

total infrastructure capacity in South Africa and the

united Kingdom, they can make a big impact on pub-

lic sector delivery.

Netcare started working with the National health

Service (NhS) in the united Kingdom in about 2001.

This process began with a contract to complete 45 000

cataract surgeries within five years. This contract was

executed from mobile clinics, which we leased to

keep capital expenditure low. At the time the NhS

had a specialised clinic, the Moorfield eye clinic,

which, it said, could only perform 10 to 12 cataract

procedures a day. We felt we could do 20 to 22 pro-

cedures a day. When we got started it was difficult

to meet this goal, and our doctors had to work long

hours. but by the time we finished the project we

were finishing early, and meeting our targets. There

was no sacrifice in quality. The NhS is very strict in

terms of outcome measurement, and the outcomes

of projects are independently analysed. This helps

keep everyone happy with the project, and builds

trust.

Moreover, these contracts are always done on a

cost-neutral basis, which means that we deliver at

NhS pricing. So the state got what it wanted, and at

the same prices, but much faster.

We did similar things with general surgical wait-

ing lists, and in primary health care. in some cases

we added capacity (by adding beds) and in all cases

the gain in outcomes at the facility was greater than

the raw capacity we added, according to information

audited by the NhS itself.

another opportunity for low-risk

partnership is training, such as training

government nurses or paramedics


15

The most difficult aspect of these complicated ini-

tiatives was understanding how we could seamlessly

fit into the health care system. This means understand-

ing the referral pathways, the entry and the exit points,

and how to get the public and private systems sharing

the right information at the right times. That’s not easy

at all, and the contracts can be very complicated.

We are establishing a major project in lesotho

in terms of which the state will outsource about 80

per cent of its health budget. We are building a terti-

ary hospital, and renovating the three filter clinics.

This is a contract worth R1,2 billion, funded partly by

the Development bank of Southern Africa (DbSA),

involving various local companies as well as Netcare.

There are about 900 pages of contract documenta-

tion. We’re building a 425-bed hospital, which will

have only 35 private beds, maintaining all the facili-

ties, and employing the staff. (in South Africa the only

health professionals we can employ are nurses.) The

initial contract is for 18 years. This project started in

2009, so it’s too early to say whether it will succeed,

but it’s an example of a ppp at a very high level. Other

countries in Africa and the Middle east are watching

with interest.

Getting back to South Africa, we started negoti-

ating with hospitals in bloemfontein in 2001. We’ve

upgraded the universitas and pelonomi hospitals,

including a co-location arrangement with private

beds operating in some of the public facilities. public

wards are now identical to the private ones, except

that they don’t have television. We learned a lot

from these upgrade projects, and initially lost a lot

of money, partly because we didn’t control facility

management.

At the universitas hospital the private beds were

on the eighth floor. but two years ago the lifts broke

and they still haven’t been repaired. So now we insist

on managing facilities ourselves.

One big difference between South Africa and the

other health systems we work with is that our govern-

ment is very reluctant to outsource clinical services.

but the cases i’ve described show that this can work,

so perhaps we need to reconsider things here.

There are occasional exceptions. Whenever epi-

demics occur, co-operation between the private

and public sectors improve. This happened during a

recent cholera epidemic, as well as strikes by public

sector nurses and doctors. in those situations, pri-

vate sector facilities admit public sector patients at

discounted rates. We’ve repeatedly had to evacuate

the icu wards in public facilities as a result of power

failures. in general, though, the higher you go up the

public health service, by which i mean the further

from the demands at the clinical front line, the less

collaboration is considered.

in summary, two crucial points:

• private companies can take on and deliver con-

tracts on a cost-neutral basis. We’ve proved this,

and it refutes the argument that the private sector

cannot compete with the public sector on cost, or

always pursues gigantic profits.

• As shown by the figures on our partnerships in

the united Kingdom – audited by the NhS – these

projects can enhance both access and outcomes.

David Beretti

Executive director: corporate services,

City of Cape Town

cape Town is a large and complicated metro, with

3,5 million residents spread across 2 500 square

kilometres. it has 23 000 permanent staff members,

210 councillors, 23 subcouncils, and an annual

budget of R23 billion. it encompasses numerous

vibrant business districts, but also some very poor

areas, including more than 200 informal settlements.

This is a huge challenge, as is the housing backlog.

As regards service delivery, the metro’s compe-

tencies include water, electricity, and solid waste.

Other services include roads, transport, law enforce-

ment, fire services, emergency services, housing, and

health. in many areas, different levels of government

co-operate with one another. city law enforcement

units collaborate almost continuously with the SApS,

particularly over substance abuse and crime in the

private companies can take on and deliver

contracts on a cost-neutral basis


16

inner city. Another example is preparation for the

2010 World cup, as well as public transport, includ-

ing the Rapid integrated Transport System.

The city has been recognised in a number of

ways. in 2008 the then executive mayor, helen Zille,

was named the best mayor in the world, and in 2007

the Department of environment and Tourism named

cape Town as the cleanest metro in the country. A

recent testimonial from the National Assembly

ranked cape Town as best city out of the country's

283 municipalities. The city won this award because

of the way in which it deals with poverty, access to

basic services, economic activity and infrastructure,

and because its citizens are well-qualified. Mood-

ie's credit rating for the city is AA2, which is at the

high end of the five metros. cape Town has received

unqualified audits for the past five years. Despite its

successes, there is still much to do.

how are these successes achieved?

• The city attempts to respond to residents’ needs. it

engages in extensive public consultation, includ-

ing a schedule of road shows that produce inputs

for its integrated Development plan. Residents

overwhelmingly say they are concerned about

housing, crime, and jobs.

• in the administration, structure follows strategy.

integrating the unicity of cape Town from the

seven municipalities that preceded it was a huge

challenge. There were different organisational

cultures, different conditions of service, and

sometimes major disparities in salaries for basi-

cally the same jobs. This required a large-scale

organisational realignment process with clean

government as a major goal. The focus was on

proper structures, and aligning those structures

to the city’s strategy. every staff member was

given a clear job description, with reporting lines,

responsibilities, a pay scale, and a title. So every-

body knew where they were on the organogram.

• The next step is to populate that structure with

good people. Selections are some of the most

important decisions you make in an organisation,

and they are difficult to reverse.

• The city prioritises clean government. clean and

open government will attract investors, who are

the creators of wealth and jobs. clean government

comes from accountability, and accountability

needs transparency. So all cape Town council

meetings and Mayoral committee meetings are

open to the public and to the media. That ensures

that officials and politicians can be held account-

able. in terms of openness for tenders, tender

awards, the media, interested parties and the

public generally can attend sittings of the bid

Adjudication Tender Award committee. There

is also a fraud hotline, and an external agency

checks that reports are properly attended to.

• The focus is very clearly on service delivery, cut-

ting down on peripheral activities. One aspect

of this was implementing a system to improve

response times. An electronic notification system

called c3 was set up. When a complaint is received

from one of numerous centres it is logged, and will

remain on the system until it is properly closed.

Managers have to go to our portfolio committee

every month, and report on how many logs have

not been closed or actioned. When a complaint

is logged off, the relevant official is held account-

able. Managers are constantly under review to

resolve problems reported to the system.

• There is a strong drive for quality management

using iSO standards. processes are reviewed

from start to finish to see if there are any wasted

resources. every single business improvement

project undertaken over the past two years has

either found that things can be done with the

same number of employees, or with fewer. So

genuine efficiencies have been gained.

• Risks are faced. They are measured, and man-

aged via an enterprise-wide risk management

programme. The risk register is presented to the

autonomous external audit committee, which

assesses how risks are being dealt with.

Selections are some of the most important

decisions you make in an organisation,

and they are difficult to reverse


17

Colin Jordaan

Commissioner of civil aviation and CEO,

Civil Aviation Authority

The civil Aviation Authority (cAA) regulates

all aspects of civil aviation in South Africa. We

license pilots, flight engineers, maintenance engi-

neers, and air traffic controllers. We approve the

operation of airports as well as air traffic and navi-

gation services, and look after the country’s aviation

security – not by doing it but by ensuring that the

necessary standards are in place, and are audited by

all the security organisations.

We're responsible for the airspace infrastructure

within the country, and for issuing aircraft operator

certificates. We also approve maintenance organisa-

tions and all aviation training schools. We have a total

staff complement of about 410.

Two years ago the cAA had a problem. We were

first audited by the international civil Aviation Organ-

isation (icAO), and then by the American Federal

Aviation Authority (FAA). The cAA had been prepar-

ing for the icAO audit for about 18 months and didn't

do too badly compared to many other countries.

however, the FAA audit was a pass-fail audit

and South Africa was given 45 days to rectify a large

number of deficiencies. if it failed to do so, if would be

downgraded to category 2 status, which meant that

South African Airways operations in the united States

would be frozen; it would not be allowed to change

its schedules, aircraft, or routing. More importantly it

would have lost the ability to conduct its code share

with united Airlines, which is vital to the success of

the Northern American operation. Running up to

2010, that would have been a serious setback.

The Minister of Transport, Jeff Radebe, realised

that something had to be done, and put together a

task team which examined the various deficiencies

identified in the course of the audit. in December

2007 i was appointed to the combined position of

commissioner and chief executive officer, previously

held by two separate individuals, with the mandate

to get us through the FAA re-audit which would take

place on 19 December. That gave me nine days to

finalise the preparations.

We passed the re-audit against quite long odds.

but the FAA also stated that it would return in six

months to check whether we had made good on our

promises. in July 2008 we passed a full re-audit with

flying colours. To achieve this we had to adopt a new

approach. We had to identify our shortcomings, and

change our mindset.

The cAA is a Schedule 3 entity in terms of the

public Finance Management Act, and falls under

the Department of Transport. Many staff members

who came from the old Department of Transport –

and even those appointed later – had a civil service

mentality, which hampered efforts to create a more

effective organisation.

So my first task was to convince senior staff to

become proactive, and lead by example. i did that

by showing them that it was easier to help solve

the industry’s problems rather than just saying no.

An example of this is dealing with applications for

exemptions from certain regulations. Now we try

to work out ways of ensuring safety in other ways

instead of dogmatically turning down the applica-

tions. industry likes this, partly because it saves them

money, and people in the cAA have realised that this

is better than simply saying no. This enthusiasm has

spread throughout the organisation and we encour-

age it to this day.

in the course of revising our bureaucratic

approach, an external organisation systematically

mapped all our business processes, flow-charted them

properly, analysed them, and ensured that we had

systems in place that would enable us to cut down on

bureaucratic procedures and improve our efficiency.

Another crucial factor was to stamp out corrup-

tion, and we did this by not accepting any hint of

corruption whatsoever. Wherever we found it, we

called in the police. We now work very closely with

the commercial crimes unit, and we have pros-

ecuted a number of people both within and outside

the organisation. in the process, we’ve sent out a very

clear message.

my first task was to convince senior staff to

become proactive, and lead by example


18

We’ve done a lot to equip our staff for the change

in mindset. We’ve sent people, including manage-

ment, on coaching courses on how to deal with the

public. This had an immediate effect. Suddenly our

staff knew how to be friendly, deflect anger and com-

plaints, and deal with the problems that the industry

and the public were highlighting. We had a very

strong customer service department; it just wasn't

empowered to deal with problems at the rockface.

And so we empowered the senior manager of that

section to handle problems, deal directly with gen-

eral managers, and ensure that problems were dealt

with directly. This meant devolving some authority.

Devolving authority creates risks. We go back and

reinforce the boundaries from time to time, so that

members of staff know where their authority begins

and ends, so that they don't expose us to liability and

litigation.

Organisations typically spend about three per

cent of their personnel budgets on training. We

spend 6,5 per cent, not only because we are a very

technical organisation but because we believe that,

given the right training, people become empowered,

and know how to deal with particular problems.

previously, our inspectors would ask inappro-

priate questions because they hadn't been properly

coached about interpreting and enforcing our regu-

lations. industry complained that inspectors didn't

know what they were doing, which harmed our cred-

ibility. So we took everybody back in and enrolled the

help of international experts, including retired pilots,

technicians and engineers. We taught them how to

be inspectors, and put them into the field with the

youngsters to create a mentoring situation. We also

contracted international experts to assist us in areas

in which we were deficient, in developing technical

materials, approving regulations, on-the-job training,

and establishing an effective enforcement team.

i'm very happy to say that the fatal accident rate

in general aviation so far this year is 50 per cent lower

than last year. We are currently one of the most com-

pliant countries in the world, probably in the top 10

out of 200. And we still have some way to go.

Discussion

Much of the discussion centred on getting a

clearer idea of what works, and why. Some-

times, the answer was very simple. One participant

asked why the private sector could get a hospital lift

fixed quickly while the public sector couldn’t do it in

three years. The answer was that if you don’t do your

job in the private sector, you will lose it.

participants asked Melanie Da costa to expand

on why public-private partnerships in the health sec-

tor worked better at lower levels. Responding, she

said medical personnel at the clinical coalface had

more in common, and were willing to swap and share

resources. Organisations became more territorial at

higher levels, and co-operation began to depend on

political will. in lesotho, a highly motivated minister

of health has played a vital role in removing obstacles

to public-private partnerships.

participants also asked her how Netcare dealt with

the constant loss of skilled medical personnel, partic-

ularly in lesotho. She acknowledged that this was a

constant challenge; however, Netcare had compiled

an adequate list of qualified staff available to work in

lesotho, which indicated that private sector work was

more attractive to many health professionals.

participants asked David beretti to comment

on challenges relating to co-operation between dif-

ferent spheres of government. in response, he said

the city had worked hard to build a more collabora-

tive relationship with other spheres of government.

This included consultations aimed at identifying key

areas for collaboration, and clarifying the division

of responsibilities. in some cases the city sought to

facilitate progress outside its own competencies, for

example by asking banks to provide finance in order

to fill the gap between the conventional private hous-

ing market and government housing.

participants also asked beretti to comment

on issues surrounding poverty and inequality in

cape Town, especially those arising from economi-

cally motivated migration from poorer regions. in

The fatal accident rate in general aviation so

far this year is 50 per cent lower than last year


19

Towards a turnaround

Mavuso Msimang

Director-general, Department of Home Affairs

Some three years ago the Department of home

Affairs faced a serious crisis, to the point where

the Minister asked her peers to intervene. Among

other things, the department had received qualified

audits for several years, and had been sharply criti-

cised by the home Affairs portfolio committee. As

a result, the Minister asked her cabinet colleagues

to help determine what was wrong with the depart-

ment, and what could be done to sort it out.

After a six-month investigation they found that

management was badly misaligned; staff turnover

was too high, with many good staff members leaving

while others stayed; corruption was rife; iT systems

were used inappropriately; and levels of inefficiency

were very high, all of which contributed to poor serv-

ice delivery.

emanating from these findings, the Minister

appointed a group of consultants with experience in

helping government departments to turn themselves

around. At that stage the department did not have

a director-general. i volunteered for the position,

and we got started. For the past two years and three

months we've been trying to set things right. While

many problems remain, we’ve made some progress.

First, i agreed to take the position of DG on cer-

tain conditions, notably that the government would

hire some top management from the market at

market-related salaries, for periods of three years.

The idea was that they would help the department

to turn around, and then leave. This was very impor-

tant – this flexible approach has played an important

part in the SARS success story.

Second, we brought in a large number of consult-

ants and deployed them in specific areas identified

as areas of weakness. consultants are sometimes

at a disadvantage because they are only indirectly

accountable, and civil servants are very good at

knowing who really has the authority to tell them

what to do. So we had to build specific relationships

in terms of which a senior official would sponsor a

programme, and support a consultant, followed by

the unit which was meant to implement the particu-

lar programme.

We set up several such programmes. The con-

sultants were supposed to ensure the transfer of

technical and management skills, and help achieve

response, he said the city had launched a programme

to secure more land for housing, provide poor house-

holds with some free water and electricity, and

upgrade informal settlements.

participants asked colin Jordaan to say more

about training at the cAA, as its success in this field

contrasted sharply with much of the rest of gov-

ernment, where a lot of money had been spent on

training with little benefit. Jordaan explained that

money for training was allocated in terms of simple

rules. First, in order to be approved, training had to

specifically benefit delivery of the cAA’s functions.

Training often helped employees to become more

skilled and employable without directly helping

current job performance or advancement within

the organisation, and could therefore end up harm-

ing instead of improving delivery. Second, training

budgets were aimed at improving internal training

capacity. Third, on-the-job training was emphasised.

Fourth, the cAA was not afraid to send personnel on

international courses when these were of high qual-

ity, and added much-needed skills.

The minister appointed a group of consultants

with experience in helping government

departments to turn themselves around


20

measurable outcomes. They were paid partly on the

basis of whether these outcomes were met.

We needed to produce some quick wins while

working on longer-term solutions. The public would

not wait until people had been restructured, work-

shopped and reprioritised. So we needed to give

the public some confidence that the money being

invested was worth their while. by re-engineering

some of our processes, and implementing other

changes, we have achieved some notable successes.

When we started, the average time taken to issue

an iD document was more than 120 days. This is

down to about 40 days, which means we’ve beaten

our initial target of getting it down to 60 days, and

we should soon have this down to less than a month.

Similar improvements have been achieved in issuing

other important documents.

A key issue that concerned us was making the

changes sustainable once the consultants stepped

aside. We wanted to ensure that the good practices

continued. This mostly depends on simple things.

before people start their working day, they have a

meeting to discuss their performance during the

previous day, identify the gaps, and decide how to

participants repeatedly stressed the need to hold pub-

lic service entities accountable for their performance.

They are extensively monitored, but measures to hold

them accountable for the results are lacking. Some of

the main monitoring bodies and their functions are

listed below.

Auditor-General: audits and reports on the

accounts, financial statements and financial manage-

ment of all national and provincial state departments

and administrations, municipalities, and any other

institution or accounting entity.8

Department of Public Service and Adminis-tration: provides professional advice and support to

government departments so as to ensure public serv-

ice excellence.9

Human Rights Commission: promotes respect

for, protection, development and attainment of human

rights, while monitoring and assessing the observance

of human rights.10

National Planning Commission: acts as the

principal agency which drives government’s overall

long-term planning, from the centre of government

and across all departments.11

National Treasury: Responsible for managing

South africa’s national government finances. Supports

efficient and sustainable public financial management

for the promotion of economic development and

good governance.12

Office of the Accountant General: Seeks to

achieve accountability to the general public by pro-

moting transparency and effectiveness in the delivery

of services.13

Parliamentary Portfolio Committees: port-

folio committees shadow the work of national

government departments, consider bills, deal with

departmental budget votes, oversee the work of the

department they are responsible for, and enquire

and make recommendations about any aspect of the

department.14

Public Protector: investigates any conduct in

state affairs, or in the public administration in any

sphere of government, that is alleged or suspected

to be improper or to result in any impropriety or

prejudice. This institution must also report on and

take appropriate remedial action against any such

conduct.15

Public Service Commission: investigates,

monitors, and evaluates the organisation and

administration of the public service. This mandate

also entails the evaluation of achievements, or lack

thereof, of government programmes.16

CDE 2009

Monitoring and evaluation


21

The need for accountability

Indran Naidoo

Deputy director-general,

Public Service Commission

i am going to outline the relationship between

monitoring and evaluation on the one hand and

democracy, accountability and performance on the

other, as reflected in the work of the pSc.

The bedrock for monitoring and evaluation is the

constitution. chapter 10 requires the pSc to monitor

and evaluate public administration in terms of nine

values and principles. We have developed a differen-

tiated M&e programme, which hopefully contributes

to good governance. unfortunately, though, transpar-

ency does not necessarily guarantee accountability.

We want our national M&e strategy to help

achieve three outputs:

• improving democracy by making information

available to civil society;

• improving policy by informing government; and

• improving organisational learning in the public

service.

There is a high level of political support for

monitoring and evaluation. We see regular pro-

nouncements at the presidential and ministerial level

that M&e will be used for accountability. it is not yet

clear whether this is actually happening and if so, on

what scale. There is some administrative use, because

pSc reporting, along with reporting by the National

Treasury and the Auditor General, is fed back to

departments. The results are also made public. The

presidency publishes a programme of action on its

website which the public can engage with. The pSc

publishes many of its reports on the performance

of departments and on key areas for good govern-

deal with them. This may seem simple, but it is very

difficult to build disciplined ways of doing things.

We have made some progress with transferring these

practices, and regular employees getting to take con-

trol of better ways of doing things.

corruption is probably the most difficult area.

essentially, we wanted to achieve three things: pro-

vide better services, provide a more friendly service,

and reduce corruption. Most of our gains thus far

have been in the area of efficiency. corruption is dif-

ficult to deal with – it happens at various places in the

processing chain, and it takes time to reorganise these

processes to block these opportunities. We still have a

long way to go in this area, even though the gains we

have made are coming to the attention of the public.

Discussion

This presentation provoked a lively discussion.

participants acknowledged and praised the

recent improvements at the Department of home

Affairs. Key points made include the following:

• public service departments and other entities

differ widely in terms of function and size, which

means that while there are some general rules

of good management, there is no single solution

that can be applied without paying attention to

the differences. Key ways in which departments

can vary include specific human resource needs

(such as needs for special skills), needs for spe-

cific kinds of relationship with other departments

and entities, and types of management. entities

should be organised in line with their functions

rather than a generic bureaucratic template.

• participants agreed that the very long chains of

reporting and decision making (16 levels in the

case of home Affairs) was a direct cause of inef-

ficiency, and that decision making needed to be

less cumbersome.

• The tenure of DGs in South Africa should be recon-

sidered. The current three-year term was too short

for incumbents to introduce meaningful improve-

ments, given how long it took to make sense of the

situation they find when they start. Most partici-

pants felt they should rather serve for five years.


22

ance on its website. There is inadequate follow-up

at different levels on whether oversight reports and

recommendations are decisively acted upon.

Does our evaluation and reporting translate into

policy change, or improved performance? The flag-

ship report of the pSc, the state of the public service

report, is now in its ninth edition, and raises similar

issues to those raised five years ago. little seems to

have changed in certain areas. Departments con-

tinue to receive qualified audits, and hR practices

remain poor. corruption is extensively reported, but

if action is taken against perpetrators, which happens

quite often, it is not always publicly known.

The same goes for other forms of reporting. We

have a toll-free anti-corruption hotline, which any-

one can call anonymously, in any official language.

More than 6 000 cases have been reported, but only

about 40 per cent have been acted upon. There is a

risk that the public will lose confidence in this sys-

tem if reporting does not lead to change. We need to

reduce corruption, not merely increase reporting.

This means connecting transparency to accountabil-

ity. There has been some progress, including cases

which have led to dismissals, but the information

may not have been used as efficiently as it should. in

some cases departments lack investigative capacity,

and something needs to be done about this too.

One innovation we have introduced to try to

improve matters is the use of inspections, both

announced and unannounced. This has led to inspec-

tions of police stations, branches of home affairs, and

other departments, to see whether the batho pele

pledge is honoured in practice.

We produce very quick reports to management,

and track whether action has been taken. When vis-

its are announced, everyone performs very well, and

when they are not, the situation tends to be quite dif-

ferent. performances also vary significantly across the

country.

but these approaches are too expensive to imple-

ment on a large scale, and we are a small institution.

We need to engage more actively with civil society in

order to extend this form of oversight. The service deliv-

ery protests in recent months probably point to a lack

The office of the minister in the presidency for national

planning recently released a green paper on a medium

term strategic framework for the period 2009 to 2014.

all ten priority areas identified in the document require

improved public service in one or more areas.

The green paper recognises that South africa is fail-

ing in some areas, and notes that, ‘apart from a handful

of departments and public entities, there is little evi-

dence of long-term planning in the public sector, let

alone integration of such plans’. it highlights numerous

issues raised by the CDE Round Table:

• a weak public service impedes economic growth. in

the present global economic environment, maintain-

ing growth and ensuring it benefits the poor is an

especially important challenge.

• monitoring needs to be related to strategic goals,

and the results of monitoring have to be used to

ensure accountability, and not merely reported.

• Despite some recent improvements, different

spheres of government are badly co-ordinated. This

hampers accountability for service delivery, and

needs to be addressed.

• Significant change, including improvements in

service delivery, needs to be championed from the

highest level of government.

it remains to be seen whether the strategic planning

process will result in a coherent programme for reform-

ing the public service. it will also need to be backed

by political leaders, and effectively implemented and

monitored. This will require hiring the right people,

punishing those who are corrupt, rewarding those who

succeed, and placing efficiency above political loyalty.

CDE 2009

The government’s Medium Term Strategic Framework


23

of contact between departments and communities,

something which the pSc has reported on previously.

We have tried to introduce some changes which

will create a better chance of our reports being used

as they should be, and are trying to reach a better

understanding of some aspects of the civil service

and public service delivery. We are focusing some

of our monitoring on individuals, via performance

assessments of senior managers. The idea is that if

you focus attention on the highest level of admin-

istration, the performance ethos will cascade down

into departments. We are making our reports thin-

ner, because we have learned that people do not read

bulky reports. We need to know whether compliance

leads to improved service delivery, or whether it

encourages goal displacement because the indica-

tors we are tracking are not the right ones. Sometimes

it is possible to manipulate indicators and become

very good on compliance, but still run an ineffective

department. We sometimes find that we are giving

departments a good rating while civil society gives

them a bad rating. We need more work on what

standards to apply.

if our reports are to lead to genuine improvements

in the state functions we monitor, there needs to be real

political will to hold senior people accountable for fail-

ures, hold departments accountable for their activities

and services, and create a serious focus on perform-

ance. The quality of the public service is varied; there

are pockets of excellence, but most departments are a

mixed bag. Monitoring and evaluation is not a pana-

cea. it operates in a political and managerial context,

and we must recognise that performance monitor-

ing on its own does not translate into accountability;

political support for reform is required.

Discussion

participants made the following points:

• The pSc’s reports are not put to good enough

use. With occasional exceptions, South Africa is

not closing the loop between goals, monitoring,

and accountability in its handling of the public

service. until it is, the pSc’s extensive reporting

will remain practically useless.

• high-level monitoring of the sort conducted by

the pSc cannot be expected to do the work of

effective internal performance monitoring, with

regular local feedback within organisations. This

depends largely on human resources in different

parts of the public service being made to work

effectively, which requires genuine penalties for

poor performance.

• The pSc operates as though all departments were

the same, and neglects important differences

between them. pSc representatives acknowl-

edged this, and said future monitoring and

reporting would attempt to pay more attention to

these differences.

• performance contracts need to be carefully

designed, so that employees at any level are

motivated in ways that fit the strategic goals of

the organisation.

• Reporting for monitoring purposes should not be

cumbersome and repetitive. Assessments should

be as short as possible as well as focused.

South africa is not closing the loop between

goals, monitoring, and accountability

in its handling of the public service


24

Reform must be affordable

public services are very large and complex institu-

tions, and reforming them can be very expensive.

The two best options for funding reform (which are

not mutually exclusive) are through a dividend from

economic growth, and from making savings, per-

haps by cutting back inefficient services. When an

economy shrinks, state revenues also diminish. The

recent green paper on national strategic planning

emphasises this repeatedly, and correctly so. poli-

cies that threaten or slow economic growth harm the

prospects for improving anything, including the pub-

lic service.

Reform needs pressure from the top

every success story about public service reform

emphasises the vital role of political leaders, at presi-

dential or ministerial level. conversely, many failed

initiatives have lacked high-level political support.

This means that any serious attempt to improve the

South African public service as a whole should be

championed by the presidency, and implemented or

co-ordinated by a capable state entity answerable to

the presidency.

Reform needs strategic coalitions

Attempts to reform any organisation will always

antagonise parties with an interest in the status quo.

in the case of the South African public service, this

includes trade unions representing public servants,

those in and outside the public service who benefit

from corruption, and those sheltered from the costs

of their incompetence by political loyalty. Anyone

seeking to reform an organisation needs to under-

stand who is likely to oppose the reform progamme,

and why; build alliances of supporters, including

those suffering from poor service delivery; and work

to reduce fears about the transition.

Reform requires clear goals, effective monitoring, and accountability

Successful institutional reform programmes need

to meet three basic requirements. They need a clear

and realistic set of measurable goals; their progress

should be regularly and accurately monitored; and

they should be held accountable for their perform-

ance. While thorough but infrequent monitoring

such as audits and annual reviews are important,

efficient delivery needs frequent and local feedback.

Monitoring systems should not be cumbersome.

Measured against these requirements, the South Afri-

can public service seems to lack clear goals as well as

accountability. however, some successes have been

achieved, and the national government has recently

acknowledged that it needs to tighten the loop

among goals, monitoring and acountability in some

areas. Moves in this direction should be recognised

and encouraged.

The ANC’s ‘deployment’ policy should be abandoned

As Maphela Ramphele has noted: ‘The deployment

policy of the ANc that has packed public services

with incompetent politically connected people has

undermined the institutional culture of our pub-

lic service. The good officials are demoralised, and

may have left or are leaving the service.’18 Good serv-

ices cannot be delivered by personnel who are not

qualified to perform their duties, or feel that, given

their political loyalty, their competence has little or

no bearing on their employment. if the challenge

of delivering decent services is to be met, deploy-

ment should be conditional on competence, and

take account of merit. ideally, merit should be a pri-

mary consideration, and it should be possible to be

a dedicated and effective public servant irrespective

of political allegiance.

attempts to reform any organisation

will always antagonise parties with

an interest in the status quo

Key insights from the Round Table


25

Corruption must be fought far more effectively

corruption should be taken very seriously. it harms

the effectiveness of any institution by distorting hir-

ing, resource allocation, and business processes.

combating it in the public service requires strong

political support, systematic monitoring, and effec-

tive processes for dealing with offenders. corrupt

individuals weigh up the chances of being caught

and punished. Fighting corruption requires chang-

ing the rules of the game to make corrupt practices

far riskier than they are now.

Reform requires good management practices

efficiency can be increased by putting processes

first, and working out how an institution should

be changed to improve key processes. When plan-

ners design state institutions they often start with

(overcomplicated) organograms, and then begin to

think about processes. Many of the success stories

presented to the Round Table included periods of

‘process re-engineering’, often with the temporary

help of expert consultants. consultants can also be

used to clarify job descriptions, improve training, and

design efficient performance management systems.

Reform requires attention to human resources

public service institutions need to be staffed by

skilled and motivated people. Their managers also

need to know whether staff members are performing

well. Dealing with these challenges requires paying

careful attention to human resources. procedures

need to be developed to identify present and future

skills gaps; recruit suitable staff; manage their per-

formance. Very senior managers should probably

serve for longer periods. poorly performing officials

should be demoted or dismissed, and corrupt offi-

cials or those committing other criminal acts should

be prosecuted.

Affirmative action should be carefully handled

Structural inequalities bequeathed by the previous

social order should be redressed, and affirmative

action is one way of doing so. however, it can have

negative consequences, notably the abrupt loss of

skills, experience, and institutional memory. Redress

and efficiency need to be carefully balanced, and

close attention to human resources and business

process issues can help to get this balance right. if

processes are simplified, and performance effectively

managed, this can help to clarify exactly what people

need to do, and how they should be trained.

One size doesn’t fit all

Although many of the lessons learnt from the Round

Table apply to the whole civil service, it comprises

bodies which differ widely in size, function, and

technical demands. What works for one won’t nec-

essarily work for another. The nature and function of

each institution should be considered when design-

ing appropriate reform strategies. The activities of

the various state entities should also be properly

co-ordinated. South Africa currently falls short in

this area, as shown by the many instances of poor

co-ordination within and among the various spheres

of government raised at the Round Table. The gov-

ernment’s new Medium Term Strategic Framework

could be a step in the right direction.

Focused agencies can be more effective than large bureaucracies

A number of the success stories from outside South

Africa and within it showed that relatively small and

specialised agencies can be far more efficient than

larger government bureaucracies. in Tanzania a

number of agencies were created to perform specific

tasks (such as issuing passports) formerly handled

by large government departments. The cAA in South

Africa was able to turn around so quickly partly

because it is relatively small, and has clearly demar-

cated functions. Many of the services delivered by

the public service could be offered in more focused

ways, and policy-makers should seriously consider

this option.

Relatively small and specialised

agencies can be far more efficient than

larger government bureaucracies


26

Public-private partnerships can work very well

While governments need to ensure that certain serv-

ices are delivered, that does not mean it has to deliver

those services itself. Many public service functions

can be contracted out to private providers, which

will deliver those services far more efficiently than

the state itself. As private health care provision in

lesotho shows, getting these partnerships to work

requires careful planning, but the gains more than

justify the effort.

Institutional culture matters

Not all organisations have performance-oriented cul-

tures. Networks of corruption, and loyalties to goals

other than performance, can be deeply entrenched.

This means that people may not automatically

change their behaviour as a result of decrees. it can

take work and time to make employees understand

a new set of rules, and to learn to work with new

systems for monitoring their performance. Success

stories demonstrate the importance of regular and

specific monitoring, which can help to entrench a

culture of performance.

The public must be brought on board

Service delivery protests indicate a lack of confidence

in, or knowledge about, other avenues for partici-

pation and criticism. As the ultimate beneficiaries

of public services, members of the public should

be consulted about services, informed of attempts

to improve them, and made aware of channels for

communicating with the government at various

levels especially about poor services and corrup-

tion. Vitally, they need a sense that the government

is responding to their complaints and suggestions.

citizens who believe that calling a helpline will really

help are far less likely to take to the streets.

Concluding remarks

in summary, the technical keys to improving

the public service are appropriate and specific

goals, accurate monitoring, and effective account-

ability. Attending to business processes and human

resources play vital roles in achieving these three

goals.

but technical changes are not enough. Any

attempt to reform South Africa's public service must

be initiated and supported by its most senior politi-

cal leaders. This cDe Round Table has demonstrated

the importance of closing the loop among goals,

monitoring, and accountability. We need to find the

political will to close this loop.

in a successful public service, efficient delivery has to

matter much more than good political connections,

seniority, loyalty, or union power. public servants

in South Africa must be motivated to perform, and

made to understand that poor performance will have

real consequences.

This is a major challenge. Senior positions in the

public service are often held by ANc stalwarts. The

public service is heavily unionised, and the ANc is

in an alliance with the trade union federation repre-

senting most of those civil servants.

Our political leaders will have to face up to this

dilemma. it is possible to design some reforms in

ways that will reduce the anxiety felt by incumbents.

Nevertheless, if our civil service is to be reformed, the

president and cabinet will have to choose the inter-

ests of the future over those of the present, and the

needs of the many over the preferences of the few.

The hopes of all South Africans must count for more

than the comfort of the bureaucracy. n

any attempt to reform South africa's public

service must be initiated and supported

by its most senior political leaders

1 South African Government information, http://www.

info.gov.za/aboutgovt/publicadmin/ps.htm#size

2 c brooks, SA hit by service delivery protests, 22

July 2009, Mail & Guardian, http://www.mg.co.za/

article/2009-07-22-sa-hit-servicedelivery-protests

(accessed 6 October 2009).

3 c Mohlahlana, calm in Sakhile Township, 2 October

2009, Eye Witness News, http://www.ewn.co.za/arti-

cleprog.aspx?id=22997 (accessed 6 October 2009).

4 c Mohlahlana, Angry residents set 7-day deadline for

ekurhuleni mayor, 5 October 2009, Eye Witness News,

http://www.ewn.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=23276

(accessed 6 October 2009).

5 public Service commission, Report on the Assess-

ment of Public Participation Practices in the Public

Service, December 2008. http://www.psc.gov.za/docs/

reports/2009/Report_Assess.pdf (accessed 10 Novem-

ber 2009).

6 public Service commission, Fifth consolidated public

Service Monitoring and evaluation System Report,

pretoria, 2008.

7 The presidency, presidential hotline starts operat-

ing, 13 September 2009, http://www.info.gov.za/

speeches/2009/09091408151001.htm (accessed 6 Octo-

ber 2009).

8 ibid.

9 constitution of South Africa, chapter 9, State insti-

tutions supporting constitutional democracy,

Section 188, http://www.info.gov.za/documents/

constitution/1996/96cons9.htm#188 (accessed 9 Octo-

ber 2009).

10 Department of public Service and Administration,

http://www.dpsa.gov.za/about.asp (accessed 12 Octo-

ber 2009).



Section 184. http://www.info.gov.za/documents/


ber 2009).

12 The presidency, Green paper: National Strategic plan-

ning, September 2009, http://www.thepresidency.gov.

za/docs/pcsa/planning/gp_nsp.pdf (accessed 9 Octo-

ber 2009).

13 National Treasury, http://www.treasury.gov.za/

(accessed on 9 October 2009).

14 National Treasury, Office of the Accountant General,

http://oag.treasury.gov.za/ (accessed 12 October 2009).

15 parliament of South Africa, http://www.parliament.gov.

za/live/content.php?item_iD=35 (accessed 9 October

2009).



Section 182. http://www.info.gov.za/documents/


ber 2009).

17 public Service commission of South Africa, legislative

Mandate, http://www.psc.gov.za/ (accessed 9 October

2009).

18 Mamphela Ramphele, integrity in public life, 2ND

Annual helen Suzman lecture, liberman Room, SA

Gallery, cape Town, Tuesday November 3, 2009.

Endnotes

Series Editor: Ann Bernstein

This edition of CDE Round Table was written by David Spurrett. The workshop on which this publication was based was conceived

and managed by Simon Dagut

This CDE Round Table was funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty

CENTRE FOR DEVELOPMENT AND ENTERPRISEInforming South African Policy

BOARDL Dippenaar (chairman), A Bernstein (executive director), F Bam, E Bradley,

C Coovadia, A De Klerk, B Figaji, S Maseko, I Mkhabela, S Ndukwana, W Nkuhlu, S Ridley, M Spicer, N Unwin, E van As, T van Kralingen.

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATEProf. P Berger

© The Centre for Development and Enterprise. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored, or transmitted without the express permission of the copyright holder. It may be

quoted and short extracts may be used, provided the source is fully acknowledged.

ISBN: 978-0-9814296-5-6Produced by Acumen Publishing Solutions, Johannesburg

Printed by Lawprint, Johannesburg

Transmedit Place, 5 Eton Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South AfricaP O Box 1936, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa

Tel 2711 482 5140 • Fax 2711 482 5089 • [email protected] • www.cde.org.za

south africa's public service: learning from success

Documents